


Coming Out Of My Cage (I'm Not Doing Fine At All)

by chronicAngel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gay Male Character, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, POV Third Person, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 13:56:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18166061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: He stares at her with wide eyes and that's when it hits her becausehe's gay, oh God, he's gay.





	Coming Out Of My Cage (I'm Not Doing Fine At All)

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of this fic contains the f-slur a couple of times.

He's been pretty sure he was gay since he was 13 years old and Jake tried out for the soccer team at his middle school. He didn't go to school with him, nor did he actually make the team, but he'd sent selfies to their group chat with Roxy and Jane and he had thanked God that his brother wasn't home because he had immediately popped a boner on the couch and he's not sure what he'd have done if he had been. Died on the spot, probably.

Still, he didn't tell anyone. Dirk lives in Houston, Texas, after all, and he's pretty sure that's the homophobia capital of the United States, if not the entire world. (Well, okay, Houston is actually pretty progressive compared to the rest of Texas, but that doesn't mean that a boy at his school wasn't called a fag and beaten bloody in the locker room after gym class right in front of him when he was 14 and it sure as hell doesn't mean that he was going to be the guy to step in and say something even as he had been _pretty sure_ for a full year at that point that he was also a fucking fag.)

He didn't tell his brother, who _is_ openly homophobic and who might just disown him, until he was almost 16, just a couple of weeks before his birthday. School called a snow day, which he thought was fair, considering the fact that they lived in Houston, Texas and while it was only 2 inches of snow, the roads had iced over and very few people living there were used to that shit. His brother had been at work as usual, though, so Dirk had had the apartment to himself.

His brother had walked in on him cranking it to gay porn, and he'd screamed for twenty minutes straight that there was no way _his_ little brother was some queer and that shit is _disgusting_ and what sort of man wouldn't want to listen to the high-pitched moans of a girl getting properly fucked?

Now he _is_ 16 and his brother has eagerly dragged him to New York City for the summer because he mentioned that one of his friends who happens to be a girl lives near there when Bro mentioned back in February that he was going to be booking a trip for the full three months of summer vacation to it for work. Originally he was just going to leave Dirk at home which, negligence aside, would have been fine. Only it's been four months now since his brother accidentally found out he was gay and Dirk knows exactly what he wants and expects him to do.

It happens twice. He instigates it the first time, she instigates it the second. He instigates it when she's taken a train up from Rainbow Falls to visit him in person for the first time  week into his stay, and it's hot so he's lounging around the hotel room with his shirt off and one of the straps of her plain black tank top slips off her shoulder and he wonders if he could be into that and without warning he kisses her. He instigates it because _there is no way he can be gay_. Even if he's just bi, that's better, because it means he can like women. It means he can _pretend_ to be _normal_.

Bro walks in on them before either of them can finish, and he's thankful for it because he's started to feel sick to his stomach and he's just been focusing on how much Roxy is enjoying herself because she's his best friend in the world and at the very least this is making her happy. At the very least she is having a good time.

And then she starts it the second time because they were interrupted the first time, and she slides her cold hands up his wifebeater to warm them up on his chest which is sweaty because it's not nearly as hot as it gets in Texas during the summer but that doesn't mean 87 degrees is cool by any means, and Bro doesn't walk in on them this time so he just squeezes his eyes shut and pretends it's in pleasure and he's ashamed that he doesn't cum until he pictures Jake's face.

Apparently twice is all it takes. He only needs to have sex with a girl two times-- and with the most incredible girl on this fucking planet to boot-- before he knows, without a doubt, that he is gay. He's not bi. He does not like women. Fuck, even actively sleeping with one-- his first time sleeping with _anybody_ for that matter-- he manages to last after she finishes until he pictures one of their mutual friends' face. One of their mutual guy friends. Dirk Strider is gay. Not only that, but he's pretty sure that he has a crush on Jake, which is sort of really inconvenient, because if there's one thing Dirk is fairly certain of it is that Jake English is not gay, and even if he was, he lives way out by New Zealand or something like that, the only one of their tight knit little internet social circle who _doesn't_ live somewhere in the US of A.

He knows he has to tell Roxy. He has to tell her before she tries to sleep with him again, or else before he dives head first into denial and _he_ tries to sleep with _her_ again. But God, he doesn't want to. He almost throws up just telling himself that he's gay.

Luckily, she doesn't try to sleep with him again. He guesses that he must have been bad which, okay, whatever, it was his second time and also why does he care about that anyway? He has much worse things to worry about. Or at the very least, certainly much bigger things to worry about. Like how the _hell_ he's going to tell his best friend in the whole world (and he has friends across the whole world, technically, so he can say that) who he _just_ slept with that actually, he's not really into girls.

She takes a train up to New York City without warning him five days before he is set to go back to Texas when he's in the middle of digging around the room trying to find his _stupid fucking shades_. He knows it's her because of the way she knocks, all shave-and-a-haircut like anyone else in the world still knocks that way. He only hesitates a minute before answering. It's not like she hasn't seen his eyes before. (After all, it's not like he wore his shades when he was fucking her.)

_Guess now is as good a time as any_ , he thinks as the hotel room door swings open right before he sees her red-rimmed eyes, and he grabs her wrist after only a moment of hesitation and drags her in for a hug. She buries her face in his chest immediately like it belongs there and sobs, and they've never done this before, not in person, but he rests his chin on top of her head because they're only 16 and he's not done growing yet but he's currently about four inches taller than her and when she's all crumpled up into herself it's not that hard to do. "What asshole do I have to beat up?" He jokes after a minute, but he knows there's a tinge of sincerity to it. He certainly _will_ get in a fight for her.

"You," she chokes out after a minute, and that has him stumbling back away from her for the first time since he opened the door.

When she makes eye contact with him, her eyes are watery and he has to tear his eyes away first because he can't _look_ at her like that knowing that somehow, in some way, it's his fault. His immediate instinct is to assume she has somehow found out about his gayness even though he's only known about it for about two months and she's upset that he slept with her despite being gay. "Rox, I--"

"No, please don't apologize. I don't want you to apologize," she says, and she clearly knows that he knows and so when she pushes past him and into the hotel room proper he just closes the door, startled, and turns to follow her. She is sitting on the foot of the bed by the time he gets there, her face buried in her hands until she must feel the mattress shift as he sits next to her, and then she leans over against his shoulder. "I don't want this," she says.

And it stings. It really, seriously _hurts_ to hear that from his best friend. "I don't want this either," he mumbles back, trying not to let his betrayal show in his voice. Because really, he's not lying. If he could change it, if he could make the world better, then he wouldn't be gay. He would be straight and probably in love with her and she wouldn't be crying on this bed right now or if she was it certainly wouldn't be out of sadness or anger or bitterness or anything she shouldn't have to feel.

Somehow, with his words, _she_ is the one to wince as though he has hurt her. As though she was hoping he would reassure her that he did want this and that meant it was going to be okay and she would just get over whatever it is she's going through right now. He can't possibly understand it. He can't possibly understand the way she's hurting. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm not sure there's anything _to_ do," he says, because it's the truth. Conversion therapy is legal but the thought terrifies him, and he doesn't think that he can just sleep with a girl enough times that he grows desensitized to it. Not if it didn't work with Roxy. If she couldn't fix him, he doubts anybody can.

"I mean, do you want to keep it or?"

This confuses him. Keep it? Like it's something he can just get rid of? Give away at a garage sale for a quick buck or flush out of his system by swallowing some pills or... The gears in his head stop turning for a second. His mind freezes, and subsequently his whole body tenses up so harshly she actually pulls away to stare at him. He finally turns to stare back at her with wide eyes. _She's_... Oh. _Oh_. She doesn't know. She doesn't know at all. This is about something else. Some _one_ else, although he's not sure if it counts as a person yet. "Fuck, Roxy, you're..."

She stares back with her own brows furrowed for a minute. "What'd you think...?" And he doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't know how to answer her question. He supposes honesty is the only thing he can answer with in this situation.

"I'm gay," he blurts, and it's not the sort of long speech his analytical mind would usually draft up, windbag that he is. He doesn't overexplain it or try to cushion the news. He just... says it. And it surprisingly doesn't feel that bad. But they're staring at each other and he can see the moment she processes it.

He stares at her with wide eyes and that's when it hits her because _he's gay, oh God, he's gay._

"You're..." He thinks he sees all five stages of grief flash across her face in quick succession over the course of two quiet seconds. Sees her shake her head just once, minute, sees her brows pinch together the way they do when she's about to yell, sees her mouth fall open and then closed again like she wants to ask him something, _anything at all_ to clarify their situation because it is truly, wholly unique, sees her entire body slump just a little bit, shrinking in on herself all over again as she processes what this means (that he never really liked her, that their sex wasn't good for him, that in the end it couldn't be good for either of them), and then sees her expression fall neutral again and she's just a blank slate, thinking before she picks up a pen to write her own dialogue. "Guess that means it fucked us both over, huh?"

"No, Roxy, it didn't..." He starts, trying to reassure her, and she tears her eyes up to look at him and the anger is back, her brows pinched together and tears springing to her eyes but he can see without feeling them that they are hot and salty and not sad in the slightest.

"Don't pretend it was good for you, Dirk. Don't you dare try to pretend anything to spare my feelings." His mouth hangs open in surprise for a second before he just snaps it shut and nods dumbly. How else is he supposed to respond? No, he's asking. He has no idea. And then all the fire in her seems to die and she sags a bit, clutching her stomach. The tears are still streaming down her cheeks. "I don't want to do this by myself..."

He wants to tell her that she won't have to. He wants to tell her that he'll support her. That he'll help. But he's 16. He's 16 and he lives in another fucking _state_. They're both still in highschool. Most of their friends live nowhere near them. He doesn't know about her, but he certainly doesn't have friends at school. He thinks he might try to befriend that one gay kid from the locker room just so he has _somebody_ to talk to about... _all of this_ , but that's so insignificant right now because his best friend is suffering and he can't do anything to fix it for her. "I know," he says instead, because there's nothing else he can say.

She sobs and lifts one of her hands to wipe angrily at her tears. "I don't want to get rid of it," she says after another minute, and his heart stutters in his chest that that was ever an option. Because he doesn't want her to get rid of it either. Its existence _terrifies_ him, but he can't stand the thought of her scheduling an appointment and some doctor ripping it out of her. It's not a life, not yet, but some day it could be, and God, they're young, they're _so young_ , but he wants that. He's being horribly selfish but she agrees so really, aren't they both?

"Okay." He breathes, not voicing any of his thoughts. "...Okay. So you won't get rid of it."

They only did it twice. Just two times. He only managed to finish the once, picturing someone else's face even as it was her on top of him. Apparently twice is all it takes.


End file.
